


Simple Comforts

by kiki_92



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Early in Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Friendship and romance, Gift Fic, M/M, Set shortly after the reactivation of Rainbow, no beta we die like (wo)men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiki_92/pseuds/kiki_92
Summary: Mute is beating himself up over a mistake and struggling to find his place in Rainbow. Enter Smoke, troublemaker and occasional nuisance, who cares for him more than it seems at first glance.
Relationships: Mark "Mute" Chandar/James "Smoke" Porter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	Simple Comforts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nutbrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutbrain/gifts).



> Here's part #1 of the pair-up event from Discord, I hope you'll like my humble offering! <3

A soft beeping noise pierced the silence, making Mute look around the workshop as he tried to find the source of the noise. 

It was on top of a table, a digital watch Mute was pretty sure he’d seen on Jäger earlier today. Not the first time the German left something behind, either leaving in a hurry for training, or too focused on something else to notice where he left his belongings. 

Mute got up and grabbed the watch. Better to keep it safe and return it to the German tomorrow morning during breakfast. A quick glance at the clock revealed it was almost 2am already. He hadn’t noticed it was this late, dammit. Morning would be torture unless he procured enough tea to drown in it. Mute supposed coffee would work better, but he refused to drink that disgusting concoction. 

Realising his mind was wandering again, Mute considered going to sleep. He already wasted enough time tonight, and he wasn’t even close to figuring a possible solution to his problem. However, if the alternative was to stay awake in bed, restlessly turning around and listening to his teammates’ snoring, he’d rather waste more time. 

There was no denying Mute was tired, he slept little and poorly for the last two days, and exhaustion was catching up with him. Yet he refused to give up, he needed to find a counter to his gadget’s weak point, failure was not an option in his mind. Mute never failed, not when it came to _this_. 

He was used to always being the smartest person in the room, and usually the youngest too. That held true in university, and in the army, and even later when he was part of the SAS and working on SIGNIT. He was always the one with the brilliant ideas, the one figuring out the problem before anyone else, the one outsmarting others. 

While Mute welcomed being surrounded by people who could challenge him -because how would he improve if there was no competition- he had been feeling a little lost these last few days. The startling realisation he wasn’t the most competent person in the team was a bitter pill to swallow. Not because of a wounded pride, or at least not entirely. No, the main reason Mute was the fear Six would dismiss him from the team. 

Mute loved being in Rainbow, it was better than any of the other positions he had so far. But Rainbow was a fragile project, everyone expected a lot from them since Six reactivated it a few months ago. If Mute wasn’t the best in the field and, much to his shame, he messed up the last extraction, then he needed to be the smartest. He had to prove his worth, show every other team his presence here was valuable. And right now, he couldn’t even do that. 

Improving his jammer seemed a good idea, whether to make their radius of effect bigger, or to make them impossible to detect, he wasn’t sure. Both sounded good to him. In the end he went with the second option, since that was easier to test while training, especially if he was facing off against IQ. But after devoting lots of energy to it, he still couldn’t find a solution. 

“Earth to Mark, are you there?” Smoke was leaning against the doorframe, as if it was a normal hour to be wandering around the base. “You were looking ahead like you were lost in your own world.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Saw the light and came to investigate,” Smoke answered, getting a disbelieving snort from Mute. Sure, he just happened to be taking a stroll at two in the morning, as you do. “Okay, okay, I was thinking it’s time to get sweet revenge. Wanna help me?”

So it was about the damn prank war he had going on with Bandit. Mute scowled. “I have better things to do.”

“Like what, staring at the wall?” 

On any other occasion, Mute would acknowledge he was getting nowhere with his current approach, and take Smoke’s offer, as a chance to clear his head. After all, one thing he always loved about Smoke was his ability to make him forget about his troubles, be it with a good conversation or dragging him along for one of his outlandish ideas. Not tonight, though. Maybe it was the lack of decent sleep in the last few days, or the fact Mute was in a black mood, but this time he was outraged Smoke suggested that. Couldn’t he see Mute was in the middle of something important?

“I said I’m bloody doing something! Some of us take our future seriously and try to improve, instead of going around pranking people.”

“Geez, who pissed on your tea?” 

Smoke was more surprised than angry at Mute’s sudden outburst. The young defender had a fame of being prickly and lashing out at people if someone interrupted him while working. However, Smoke had never been on the receiving end of his fury until now. At least not for something so trivial. The fact Smoke so clearly acted like Mute was overreacting only irritated him more. 

“Just go, I’m busy,” he coldly said, turning back to the strewn papers on the table and ignoring Smoke. 

When he left, silent and unseen, Mute felt both relief and disappointment, whether at himself or Smoke, he wasn’t sure. He tried to focus on the equations, but the more he tried, the more numbers seemed to move around, slipping from his grasp. How low had he sunk, if he couldn’t solve a simple calculation like this? His teachers would be ashamed, his colleagues from SIGNIT would laugh their asses off. Frustrated beyond belief, Mute put rested head on his hands and sighed, defeated. 

“Still here?” Smoke’s voice nearly made him jump, startled. He turned to look at him, too tired to dredge up his anger again. In fact, part of Mute found endearing how Smoke did whatever he went to do and came back to check on him, despite Mute being an asshole towards him. “You look like shite, when was the last time you slept?” 

“Last night, remember? We share a dorm, with Baker and Cowden, in case you forgot that too,” Mute deadpanned. 

“Oh look, he knows how to joke!” Although neither of them was laughing, one looking worried and the other like he was intent on working himself into fainting by exhaustion. “As you said, we share a dorm, I heard you tossing and turning all night.”

Mute stared at him in silence. What was there to say, anyway? He barely got any sleep in the last forty-eight hours, and despite how tired he was, Mute felt the urge to keep working. Smoke wasn’t having any of that, though.

“Why don’t you take a break? You’re not sleeping, I’m not sleeping, we could watch a movie.”

“A movie. At 2am.” Mute was actually tempted to accept, a break to clear his head was acceptable, even tempting. Still, Smoke’s idea seemed inappropriate for the hour it was.

“When Charlie’s upset, I paint her nails and let her paint mine. We could do that instead.” Smoke’s shit-eating grin pushed Mute to flip him off, although he was smiling as he did it. That man was full of ridiculous ideas, and Mute loved it. “C’mon, I’m too awake and I always wanted to be a bad influence on someone, let’s go watch something. I promise I’ll pick something short on Netflix.”

The mix of Smoke’s insistence and the way he tugged at his sleeve like a lost dog, and Mute’s own tiredness, and the much lighter mood all combined to make the idea irresistible. He let Smoke lead him to the TV room, and didn’t think twice before sitting next to Smoke, pressed so close together they couldn’t even fit a sheet of paper between them. He even laid his head on Smoke’s shoulder. To better see the phone’s screen, of course.

It would have been more comfortable if it was the other way around, since Mute was taller and this position required him to slide lower than he usually did. When he complained about it, Smoke muttered something about him being too damn tall, and how Charlie better not dare to be taller than her dad.

“You know, the first time you mentioned Charlie, I didn’t know if you were talking about your daughter or your dog,” Mute confessed, head lying comfortably on Smoke’s shoulder as the later browsed through Netflix’s catalogue. He had no idea why he was confessing this, but Mute felt at ease and drowsy, and it seemed right to let Smoke know. Judging by his laughter, he didn’t mind.

“Oh, this one I have to tell her. Wait until you meet her one day, she’s going to give you grief over it forever.”

“You talk to your daughter about me? About the team, I mean?” Mute asked, a vague feeling of nervousness churning in his stomach. He felt a nice warmth thinking Smoke considered him important enough to talk about him when he was with his family.

“Of course, same as I talk your ear off about her. Can’t shut up about the people I like.” After making such a confession in the most casual way, Smoke finally found whatever he’d been searching for and pressed play.

If someone asked Mute what he was watching, he wouldn’t know what to answer. Yes, his eyes were trained on the screen, but his thoughts were stalled on Smoke’s words and the implication behind them. Smoke liked him. Mute had been reticent to think any of his teammates would consider him more than a mere coworker, or comrades, as the Russians would say. 

Over the years, few people had liked Mute. His brashness and youth, coupled with his intelligence, were highly off-putting for a good deal of people, Mute knew that. Even in highly professional environments, he struggled to form some bond with his coworkers. And yet _Smoke liked him_. Perhaps because the shorter defender could be as annoying or more than Mute himself. He owed Smoke an apology for what he said before, but Mute’s head felt heavy and he could barely muster the energy to blink, his eyes slowly closing…

“Hey, I’m not carrying your ass to bed, you’re too heavy for that,” Smoke bumped his shoulder, startling Mute from his near asleep state.

“‘M not sleeping,” he yawned. “Couldn’t fall asleep on you, you don’t make a very good pillow.”

Despite what he said, Mute didn’t make a move to get up or change position. It felt pretty damn nice lying against Smoke’s side, even if his shoulder was a bit too bony. Not that Smoke tried to actually push him off, instead he let his head rest against Mute’s. His eyelids slowly fell down again, and the last thing he remembered from that night was hearing -and feeling- Smoke’s slow breathing, and thinking his friend had been right. 

This, a break and a quick nap, were exactly with Mute needed. That Smoke stayed at his side, probably fast asleep too, only made it even better. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can say hi and see what I'm currently up to on [my tumblr](http://r6shippingdelivery.tumblr.com/) and on [my twitter](https://twitter.com/kikipeachywitch) !


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